A Dual Reconfigurable Printed Antenna: Design Concept and Experimental Realization

In this article, we demonstrate the design concept and experimental realization of a dual reconfigurable printed antenna. A single coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed printed monopole antenna can provide a reconfigurable ultrawideband (UWB)-notched or narrow-band (NB) response, depending on the status of the switches and the position of the split ring resonators (SRRs) in the CPW feed region of the antenna. The rectilinear movement of the superstrate, printed with various pairs of SRRs of differing dimensions, loaded in the feed region of the antenna, provides the reconfigurable functionalities. The position of the superstrate is controlled by a commercial servo motor programmed by a microcontroller. The antenna, along with the additional accessories required to actuate the mechanical movement, are fabricated and characterized using impedance and radiation pattern measurements. The measured results for both reconfigurable cases provide a good correspondence with the simulated results and the theoretical estimation. The proposed antenna can be used as a reconfigurable communicating antenna module of the cognitive radio (CR) system.